Charge of the Light Horse Brigade

[Frederick Skelly]

The developments in artillery were in many ways more significant. Something like 60% of the casualties on the western front were from artillery.

For years, I could not understand why the Douaumont Ossuary was created. Link. It seemed so medieval, even perverse to me. It is literally a building full of "the jumbled bones of 130,000 WWI soldiers. The windows of the ossuary peer in on pile after pile of bones, which you can walk amongst."

And then I learned about the artillery barrages that Nick describes above. Their bodies were blasted into pieces. Then another barrage later would blast the pieces into fragments. Many times, there were not enough identifiable remains to bury. This was the best they could do - gather up the random fragments and entomb them - 14 years afterward.

As I've mentioned here before, France lost an entire generation. For years afterward, elderly women would give up their seat on a bus or train to a male who was of that generation. There were so few left they did it as a sign of their appreciation and respect.

Fred

[Sorry for the soapbox. All war is terrible. This one just gets to me every time.]